Cover Me: Bruce Springsteen

Cover Me will be a recurring feature on visible voice that will showcase exceptional or interesting covers.  Cover songs are a tricky thing; done well they can highlight influences and similarities between the covering band and the covered that may or may not be apparent at first and in rare cases even transcend the original to become something entirely new.  Done poorly and the result can reduce an otherwise great band to the level of a wedding band, or worse, me in my bedroom playing Neil Young songs on a slightly out-of-tune acoustic guitar.

The inaugural edition of Cover Me features Bruce Springsteen, the artist for which this segment gets its name.  With a new wave of artists heavily indebted to Springsteen's work, he is a natural target for the cover treatment.  However, while the songs may be musically straightforward, channeling the passion from which the songs were written and the intensity with which they are performed is a daunting and difficult task, but these bands are up to the task.  Each of bands featured below takes a classic Springsteen song and adds their own original stamp, while still paying respect to the original:

Streets of Philadelphia (Marah)
Atlantic City (The Hold Steady)
The River (Josh Ritter)
Nebraska (Deer Tick)